Typhoon Haiyan Dashes Philippine Hopes of Rice Self-Sufficiency

MANILA—Typhoon Haiyan has dashed hopes of the Philippines becoming self-sufficient in rice this year and forced the state grains agency to approve the importation of an additional 500,000 tons of rice due to production losses and declines in inventory stemming from typhoon relief operations.

European Pressphoto Agency

Filipino typhoon victims Ador Agusto (L) and his wife Melinda (R) salvage rice for their famly of four near a destroyed rice plant in the typhoon devastated Leyte province, Philippines, on Nov. 18.

More than 77,000 hectares of rice were damaged in some 17 provinces affected by the super-storm, which tore through the country nearly two weeks ago. The central Philippines is largely an agricultural area, and much of the local economy depends on the sale of commodities such as coconut, sugarcane and rice.

Two provinces – Iloilo and Leyte – rank among the top 10 rice-producing provinces in the country. The storm’s impact on rice fields there will add to production losses caused by earlier typhoons and further trim national output – frustrating any hopes of achieving self-sufficiency this year.

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Dante de Lima, assistant secretary in the Department of Agriculture and national coordinator for the government’s rice program, said Thursday that annual production would fall 1 million tons short of this year’s target of 19.03 million tons, which the government says is needed to achieve self-sufficiency.

In 2010 the Philippines became the world’s largest rice importer due in part to a lack of investment in production. The Philippines consumes 114 kilograms of rice on a per capita basis, below neighboring countries Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Except for a brief period in the 1970s, when the country stepped up its rice-production program, the Philippines has been a net rice importer for the past five decades, in part because it was cheaper, particularly in recent years, to buy rice from Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand than produce it locally.

After 2010, the government invested more in boosting its rice output and the country began exporting some varieties last year.

The government has remained reluctant to import rice since achieving self-sufficiency, but Mr. de Lima said importing an additional half million tons of the staple grain would help the country cope with the disaster and ease recovery efforts.

One factor behind the need to boost imports is that Haiyan is not the first storm to batter rice-producing provinces this year. Storm Sari, which landed in October, damaged rice crops in the country’s main rice-producing province of Nueva Ecija and other areas, leading to a loss of 400,000 tons of rice. Losses from Haiyan are estimated at 200,000 tons.

Both storms hit the rice-producing provinces of Leyte, Iloilo, Nueva Ecija, and Mindoro, which together were expected to deliver about 40% of the 4-million-ton harvest expected in the first quarter of 2014, said Mr. de Lima.

To increase yields moving forward, Mr. de Lima said the Philippines is trying to irrigate an additional 1.5 million hectares of rice fields. Only 1.5 million hectares of the 4.5 million hectares of land set aside for rice growing are covered by irrigation; the additional 1.5 million hectares of the total aren’t irrigable and just rely on rainfall. Added irrigation could have a significant impact on production, since yields in areas where irrigation is available yield 1.3 tons more than rice than land that relies mainly on rainfall.

“If we could only increase irrigation coverage, then we [could] minimize the impact of typhoons because we could plant more areas during the dry season,” said Mr. de Lima.

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